Gene Deitch: For the Love of Prague.
I am refugee from a former Communist Czechoslovakia and obviously try to read any book or article about my old country. My old country split after the communist fall into two republics Czech and Slovak respectively; myself being a Czech.
I have to admit that the book did not allow me to do anything else except to read it to the last word.. The author lived in Prague from 1960 as an animator of the children cartoons. He is laureate of an Oscar in his field. What made his book so interesting for me is his impartial attitude by being an American in a ”bizarre” country. Likewise he himself was considered a puzzling person. For the Communists he was a CIA agent, for the Americans at home he was a Communist. He explained his relatively unhindered stay in such a despotic state by the Communist need for precious foreign currency and his unpolitical conduct. He vindicated this behavior that just by being there he undermined Communist propaganda more competently. From my 10 years of experience living under such dictatorship I would say he was at least partially right; it is obvious that just one statement against the regime would have banned him from Czechoslovakia since he was obviously watched by omnipresent spies, collaborators.
I treasured his short observations about the living conditions there: no Czech would enter a hotel to visit one of the foreign guests without first leaving his or her identity card with the porter. As a matter of fact every apartment house had a “housekeeper”, who recorded in a special book the names of all the visitors. It was a known fact that all hotel rooms had hidden microphones. The author claims that during his 30 years living under communist government he never met a real, authentic Communist. There were lot of “radishes” – red on the outside, white on the inside -- I was one of them before escaping that “workers paradise”.
When talking about his work, he felt some guilt for intruding upon the Czech animation culture, which in many ways was more mature and subtle than in the USA. In general he found the people very resourceful, capable to improvise, to build their own gadgets which were not available. He also thought that through magical osmosis, the average Czech despite strict censorship was far more informed about world affairs than the average American, who had access to everything.
The writer’s thoughts are well organized going through the dramatic days of Prague Spring put down by Soviets tanks. So called “normalization era” came next and it lasted over twenty years; eventually Freedom marched to bring the death to Communism due to the Velvet revolution in the 1989.
Now the Czech republic is a democratic state with a freely elected government. The capitalist system is described with all the advantages and its dark sides; unfortunately this new situation confused many people. Besides skillfully described political events, the reader is kept in suspense learning the writer’s private life. It was marked by a traumatic divorce and start a new life in a discovered loving relation with a Czech spouse.
I enjoyed the book, but I have one major objection. Mr. Deitch came to that country in 1960, therefore he missed the bloody years of fifties. During those years the Communists organized trials forcing the innocent victims to confess to made-up reactionary activities which lead to their executions. Though not being a witness of those horrible events I still would expect some mentions of their heroism.
On the other hand this book is important in demonstrating to all the idealists how they were duped when believing that the USSR and its satellites had created a new just social order.
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